Opinionated single mum to two amazing boys! Some opinions may be popular, some not, but I will own my opinions, whether people agree or not.

Saturday, 19 May 2012

Over and out

No, not my blogging. Hardly. I can't imagine not doing that once in awhile and getting what's in my head out. But I've given up certain parts of my life because I'm just done. I'm tired. And, as Tom Selleck's character Francis Reagan says in the show "Blue Bloods", "this is the type of tired sleep cannot cure."

(Yeah, side note. In the last week, I've downloaded and watched every single episode of Blue Bloods. I'm pretty sure that after episode two it wasn't because I thought it was a good show (I do - think it's a great show!) but because Tom Selleck has gotten seriously sexy since his Hawaiian shirt days, and Donnie Wahlberg? Holy cow. Those few peeks of him without a shirt on? Hellllllo. Anyway, back to topic.)

I'm tired of living somewhere where I know who the bullies are and how they behave. I'm tired of the fact that in a few families I see it being passed down generation to generation - and not among the kids, but the adults. The same adults that would bully people a generation, two generations ago, at meetings and before meetings to get their own way, their children - their adult children - are doing it now. But not just them, but those in their clique, just as the people in their parents' clique did before them, and their grandparents' before them. What I do know is this - unless you are actual family, if you're part of that clique and you start doing something they don't like? They'll stab you in the back as soon as look at you. What I wanted to put on my Facebook status the other day (but didn't) was "I'm sorry, is that your knife if my back?" But I thought the better of it because it is just not worth it.

So I've changed things about in my life. I quit a parent committee that I was head of as of the end of this school year instead of putting myself up for nomination to do the second year of what can be a two year term. After what has gone on lately, and what I know for a fact was going on behind my back, and that I know (also for a fact) that certain people have wanted me gone since early last winter, I determined that a few of these people are just not worth my time and energy. There are many good ones, and many good volunteers, all of which I am honoured to know and have worked with. But that small handful that made my life absolutely miserable, that were causing me to have massive anxiety attack to the point of meds before I would even leave my house to go to the meetings, they're just not worth it. They're not worth my time, they're not worth my energy and they're not worth the further negative effect they were having on my health. My health has not been good for a long time. Dealing with them was not helping that, but making it worse and worse. I'm not just stepping back. I'm leaving that altogether. I won't be renewing my registration in the fall. Maybe I will the following year, maybe not ever. But at this point, as long as there are certain other people involved I just can't. It is not worth my physical health, it is not worth my mental health. And I'm just done.

Everything I have done has been in the best interest of my kids. But when I end up in tears over this damn group twice in the course of a week, no more. When the heart arrhythmia that I've been having on and off has been getting progressively worse to the point that now I do want to wear the heart monitor thingy that I refused to before, no more. And when people who know the situation, who know the players involved, some to the point of not being members of this committee at all because of who these people are, and then are telling me that it's in my best interest to run away quickly, I know I'm doing the right thing.

What's incredibly sad to say is that this is not the first time I have been involved in committees/organizations in this community in which I have walked away because of the bullying ways in which things have been run. I did the same thing with Girl Guides seven years ago. I wasn't anywhere close to running things, but I was the leader in charge of one level. There was the same infighting among certain people and the same people trying to make peace that had been going on when I was a child within the organization fifteen years earlier. When some of it was finally directed at me, it wasn't worth the stress.

So what have I learned in all this? That I've tried. And I give up. And the chances of me joining any organizations in a leadership capacity anymore are slim to none. At least here. Should we ever move, I will try again. When I did Guiding in London and Windsor I loved it. The infighting and backstabbing that I found here didn't exist (at least not to the full scale level that it does here). But I also learned that I need to start putting myself and my well being first. I have not done that, well, ever. So now my new task is to attempt to learn how to do that.

But on a funny note I did learn today that apparently I'm dating. I was informed that someone at work (I know who) has been going around telling people that she saw me at the bar with a guy. Funniest thing ever. Where did this come from? She happened to overhear me tell my boss that I was functioning on very little sleep (about 45 minutes) one night because I'd been out at the bar with a friend the night before until after 11 so I couldn't take my night time medication. Apparently, "out at the bar with a friend" meant I was on a date. And she just happened to say she saw me there. Let's just say this is a very, very, small bar and you can see everyone in the place from pretty much any place you stand. There was a retirement party going on and I knew some of the guys that were there, but I was not with any of them. I was there with someone who is older than I (they have adult children), married (not that that matters to some people) and, well, female, and anyone that knows me knows that that's not how I would date. If I dated. Which I don't. Which made this whole thing incredibly funny to me. So funny I honestly cried.